Cornelia Otis Skinner Quotes

• Women keep a special corner of their hearts for sins they have never committed.

  Cornelia Otis Skinner

  Love, Women, Heart

  "Biography/ Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

  50 Copy quote

• Women's virtue is man's greatest invention.

  Cornelia Otis Skinner

  Women, Memorable, Virtue

  13 Copy quote

• We all have our little illusions about our own mental abilities.

  Cornelia Otis Skinner

  Intelligence, Littles, Illusion

  Cornelia Otis Skinner (1985). “Bottoms up!”

  11 Copy quote

• It is disturbing to discover in oneself these curious revelations of the validity of the Darwinian theory. If it is true that we have sprung from the ape, there are occasions when my own spring appears not to have been very far.

  Cornelia Otis Skinner

  Spring, Apes, Curious

  Cornelia Otis Skinner (1959). “The Ape in Me”

  52 Copy quote

• The French have no such expression as 'killing time.' In their more philosophical vocabulary the term is 'passing time,' which means savoring all moments of it each to his individual enjoyment. While we battle with time, they relax with tempo.

  Cornelia Otis Skinner

  Time, Philosophical, Mean

  Cornelia Otis Skinner (1985). “Bottoms up!”

  9 Copy quote

• Public opinion which, to be sure, can at times be helpful, must never for an instant swerve us from what we know in our heart we are trying to convey. For honesty is the great requisite of art. If we remain honest with ourselves, art, which is always there, never lets us down.

  Cornelia Otis Skinner

  Art, Honesty, Trying

  8 Copy quote

• There is no English equivalent for the French word flâneur. Cassell's dictionary defines flâneur as a stroller, saunterer, drifter but none of these terms seems quite accurate. There is no English equivalent for the term, just as there is no Anglo-Saxon counterpart of that essentially Gallic individual, the deliberately aimless pedestrian, unencumbered by any obligation or sense of urgency, who, being French and therefore frugal, wastes nothing, including his time which he spends with the leisurely discrimination of a gourmet, savoring the multiple flavors of his city.

  Cornelia Otis Skinner

  Cities, Gourmet, Flavor

  11 Copy quote

• To cement a new friendship, especially between foreigners or persons of a different social world, a spark with which both were secretly charged must fly from person to person, and cut across the accidents of place and time.

  Cornelia Otis Skinner

  Inspirational, Friendship, Cutting

  20 Copy quote

• mosquitoes were using my ankles as filling stations.

  Cornelia Otis Skinner

  Mosquitoes, Ankles, Insects

  10 Copy quote

• There are compensations for growing older. One is the realization that to be sporting isn't at all necessary. It is a great relief to reach this stage of wisdom.

  Cornelia Otis Skinner

  Age, Relief, Realization

  Cornelia Otis Skinner (1938). “Dithers and Jitters”

  9 Copy quote

• It's not that I don't want to be a beauty, that I don't yearn to be dripping with glamour. It's just that I can't see how any woman can find time to do to herself all the things that must apparently be done to make herself beautiful and, having once done them, how anyone without the strength of mind of a foreign missionary can keep up such a regime.

  Cornelia Otis Skinner

  Beautiful, Mind, Missionary

  Cornelia Otis Skinner (1948). “That's Me All Over: All the Favorite Absurdities from Dithers and Jitters, Soap Behind the Ears, and Excuse It, Please! Along with Tiny Garments”

  7 Copy quote

• Tragedy can break the heart but not the dam of the tearducts while schmaltz can dissolve the most hardened sophisticate.

  Cornelia Otis Skinner

  Heart, Tears, Tragedy

  Cornelia Otis Skinner (1985). “Bottoms up!”

  4 Copy quote

• That food has always been, and will continue to be, the basis for one of our greater snobbism does not explain the fact that the attitude toward the food choice of others is becoming more and more heatedly exclusive until it may well turn into one of those forms of bigotry against which gallant little committees are constantly planning campaigns in the cause of justice and decency.

  Cornelia Otis Skinner

  Attitude, Food, Justice

  11 Copy quote

• Emily and I have now reached the time in life when not only do we lie about our ages, we forget what we've said they are.

  Cornelia Otis Skinner

  Lying, Age, Forget

  5 Copy quote

• Courtesy is fine and heaven knows we need more and more of it in a rude and frenetic world, but mechanized courtesy is as pallid as Pablum ... in fact, it isn't even courtesy.

  Cornelia Otis Skinner

  Rude, Heaven, Facts

  Cornelia Otis Skinner (1959). “The Ape in Me”

  4 Copy quote

• ... I have always fallen for ads. The sweetheart of J. Walter Thompson, I have a peasant-like belief in whatever miracle they profess to effect.

  Cornelia Otis Skinner

  Miracle, Belief, Sweetheart

  Cornelia Otis Skinner (1948). “That's Me All Over: All the Favorite Absurdities from Dithers and Jitters, Soap Behind the Ears, and Excuse It, Please! Along with Tiny Garments”

  4 Copy quote

• That amenity which the French have developed into a great art . . . conversation.

  Cornelia Otis Skinner

  Art, Women, Conversation

  Cornelia Otis Skinner (1962). “Elegant Wits and Grand Horizontals: A Sparkling Panorama of "La Belle Epoque", Its Gilded Society, Irrepressible Wits and Splendid Courtesans”

  4 Copy quote

• The reason for the scaffolding on the tower of Saint Germain-des-Près is that a rich American has purchased it and is having it crated for shipping.

  Cornelia Otis Skinner

  Paris, Saint, Towers

  Cornelia Otis Skinner (1985). “Bottoms up!”

  7 Copy quote

• All I have learned about horses is that they are beautiful overrated creatures and are all born quite insane.

  Cornelia Otis Skinner

  Beautiful, Horse, Insane

  4 Copy quote

• It's as though some poor devil were to set out for a large dinner party with the knowledge that the following morning he would be hearing exactly what each of the other guests thought of him.

  Cornelia Otis Skinner

  Morning, Party, Devil

  1959 Of opening night reviews.The Ape In Me.

  4 Copy quote

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